Using only advanced metrics, as well as our own metric (PwRC+), we look at who should have been an All-Star for this season vs who actually got selected.
The heavier and more expansive use and understanding of advanced baseball metrics has made the selection process more muddied and complicated. The original purpose of the All-Star game at its inception was to create a show-case for baseball's biggest stars. It was a way for the MLB to promote all of it's most talented and famous players, which was difficult to do prior seeing as baseball itself is highly regional, and given the lengthy and rigorous schedule, can be hard to follow; especially if you're trying to follow multiple teams/players outside of your team. The solution was the All-Star game, where the best players from each league would face off, giving fans an opportunity to see the best of the best. How we determine who the best of the best is, nowadays, has changed. This is where things get complicated from a voting perspective. What happens if the best player on a team isn't the most famous player on the team? Bryce Harper is probably the most famous player on the Phillies (even though that team has LOTS of recognizable players at this point in time), but he certainly is not he best this season. So should Bryce Harper be the Phillies' All-Star rep over a statistically better player, since he is more famous (ie, the original point of the game) or should a statistically better player go to rep the Phils on account of his performance? We look at all of this and more in this episode!